The Southern Illinois soldier mentioned
was not from Hamilton Co.
He was, instead, from Golconda, Pope Co., IL.
The story is so interesting, I am including it here.

Of the many hundreds who were aboard the General Lyon,
but 28 were known to have been saved; they were picked up by the steamer
General Sedgwick four hours after the burning of the General Lyon.

The non-veterans of the 56th Illinois Volunteers, 205 in
number, were passengers aboard the General Lyon. Five of those men
were saved by the Sedgwick, and they reported the rest of their comrades
as lost. After the lapse of more than ten years, one more of the
passengers of that ill-starred vessel, long ago given up as lost, turns
up at Guy Hospital, London, England, and writes to his father near
Golconda, Illinois, giving an account of himself. The name of this
man of misfortune is Henson G. Raines; he belonged to Company
K, 56th Illinois Volunteers. After his time of service
expired, he and his comrades were started home for muster-out and were
furnished transportation on the steamer General Lyon. Very soon
after sailing, the vessel encountered a storm off Cape Hatteras, and in
the midst of it took fire and was totally destroyed. Raines
escaped into the sea, and, with Lieutenant Butler, clung to a cabin
door. They drifted upon the billows for four days without food or
drink, and, more dead than alive, were picked up by a schooner and left
on an island, where Butler died and Raines remained ten years. In
March, last he escaped aboard the British man-of-war Vengeance, and was
taken to London, and being sick, was placed in Guy Hospital.

Application has been made to the Secretary of War to
have our Minister at London requested by cable to have Raines properly
cared for and funds furnished him for his return.

The stories of Robinson Crusoe and the hero of 'Foul
Play' are probably equaled in interest by the adventures of this gallant
soldier who, after serving his country for more than three years, and
participating in victories of the Army of the West at Corinth,
Vicksburg, Mission Ridge, the Atlanta, Savannah and South Carolina
campaigns, fled the burning deck of a ship in mid-ocean, to find refuge
on the raging sea, and with an endurance scarcely to be credited,
resisted death from cold, hunger, thirst, fatigue and the violence of a
raging sea, and at last is about to be restored to his friends, after a
captivity of ten years on a lonely island. Surely, truth is
stranger than fiction.

Carol's note: The Illinois Roster of Officers
and Enlisted Men gives Henson G. Raines as having enlisted as a
private on 11/7/61. They further state that on 2/27/62 he was
commissioned into "K" Co., IL 56th Infantry and that he was
drowned on March 31, 1865 on the Steamer "General Lyon".